The problem of maintaining and cleaning gutters has existed since the advent of the gutter. Yet the most successful solution remains in the manual approach; i.e., climbing up on a ladder and removing the debris and leaves by hand. However, for many this type of maintenance is at best difficult or inconvenient, and in many cases it is impossible. Some people are physically incapable of climbing a ladder and performing the cleaning process. For these people the most logical, and frequently the only, approach is to hire someone to periodically clean out the gutters. The expense of hiring maintenance personnel is not small but heretofore there has been little alternative.
Apparatus for cleaning gutters is not readily available. Although there are several types of overhead grappling devices, fruit pickers, and other types of overhead article handlers and retrievers, an investigation into these devices proved that they were not a satisfactory means for grasping and removing leaves or other debris from overhead gutters. Some of them could possibly be used from a ladder position but none were adequate to clean the gutters from a ground position.
Construction design and location of gutters necessitates an overhead retriever which has gripping arms extending downwardly at a generally acute angle so that the arm may be lifted over the gutter edge, then downwardly into the trough. Those devices which have gripping arms extending substantially parallel to or at an obtuse angle with the pole will not work, because when extended up to and over the gutter, there is no way to move the arms at an angle into the gutters for removal of debris. Therefore the only way to apply these known devices to the maintenance of gutters is in conjunction with a ladder whereby one must climb up to a height allowing the operator to extend the retriever down into the gutter for removal of debris.